


The Picture in The Watch

by pbrim



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2903861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pbrim/pseuds/pbrim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The earliest memory Annie had was sitting on Paw-Paw Steve’s lap while he showed her The Watch.</p><p>The world may have forgotten, but Steve never did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Picture in The Watch

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this photo](http://crofting-through-tombs.tumblr.com/post/106166570174/steve-rogers-would-own-this-watch-and-no-one-can)

The earliest memory Annie had was sitting on Paw-Paw Steve’s lap while he showed her The Watch. (The family had grown so large over the generations that keeping exact relationships straight, and how many “great”s should be slipped in, was difficult so everyone in the family just called him Paw-Paw.) The Watch had belonged to his father, who had died in the Great War, although Annie was a little vague on which one that was. Theirs was not a wealthy family, so it was not an ornate gold watch, but a serviceable steel one, meant to slip in a pocket, not be worn on a wrist. Inside was a picture of Paw-Paw's beloved Peggy, in her white lace wedding dress. Paw-Paw said it used to have a picture of his own mother in her wedding dress.

Everybody knew Paw-Paw was special. They learned about him in school, about the experiments, the serum, the war, and so much that came after. There were books and movies and TV shows about him. But he never wanted to tell stories about himself, just about Maw-Maw Peggy. He said he was special because of the serum, but she was special all on her own. He talked of all she achieved, at a time when women weren't expected to achieve much beyond marriage and children. He said she had changed the world as much as he had, just the things she did mostly had to be secret. He loved to tell of the first day they met, and how she had laid out one soldier so smoothly for disrespecting her.

It always surprised him how long he lived. The serum slowed down his aging, but he had so many close brushes with death. The closest of all was when he crashed that plane in the Arctic. He jumped free at the last minute, and had to swim for miles to reach land. (Paw-Paw said it was lucky he never took The Watch on missions with him, or the salt water would have ruined it.) But not even Captain America can cheat death forever, and one day the world had to go on without him.

Traditionally, such heirlooms were passed down along the male line, but no-one paid much attention to that kind of thing anymore. Annie was the only one of her generation who ever served in combat, so Paw-Paw wanted her to have The Watch. One night, she was carefully removing Maw-Maw’s picture, to be replaced by a picture of her own lovely wife in her wedding dress. (The original was to go to the Smithsonian, to be preserved in the extensive Steven and Margaret Rogers Collection.) But to her surprise, she found another picture under the one she knew so well. It was the faded photo of a cocky young man in a WW II Army uniform. It looked like one of those pictures everyone sent home when they got their first dress uniform. He had his cap tilted at just the right jaunty angle, a confident smirk on his face, and the clear untroubled eyes of a young soldier who had not yet seen combat.

She showed the picture to Grandpa James, asking if he knew who it was. “No”, the old man said, “I never – wait, I have seen a copy of this picture, when I was a kid. He grew up with Paw-Paw, I think. Paw-Paw rarely spoke of him, and when he did he always looked so sad. I believe this fella died young in the war, but I’m afraid I don’t remember his name.”


End file.
